RANSVESTIA

name. And then the real tip-off: "Of course, the idea of dressing up is repugnant to me personally ..." He hopes to secure new local or- dinances against previously unnamed vices, and may include cross dressing among them. (Either he can't legally do that, or the police in Community #2 were in error.)

2. With such a bad start, I didn't bother to ask questions 2 and 3! He then pressed me fairly hard to identify my TV friend, saying that if any morals problems came up in his town, he'd like to have a starting point for his investigation! Now we can see what sort of attitudes triggered the witch hunts in the 1600's! It's surprising that a capable, well-informed official can be so far off the beam. (Recall that Virginia found similar attitudes in some large cities, such as Denver.)

He added that police chiefs in the area keep in touch to work out common problems, and he was aware that... (Community #5, below) had passed an anti-TV ordinance, and were prepared to prosecute under it. That sounded ominous, but let's see what the facts are. Read

on...

Community #5 (pop. 20,000)-mainly residential with light industry and large shopping areas

The police chief was very impressive-capable of rapid, penetrat- ing decisions, and with the appearance (no uniform) of a top business executive. But in dealing with a personal problem, he was relaxed, warm and friendly.

After hearing my story, he (too!) asked, "Do I know this man?"-But he had a far different reason. It seems that while he was in a store recently, the merchant called him over to report that he believed the "woman" nearby was really a man. So the chief approached the "woman," and determined that the TV was really a well-established citizen and property owner in the town. So he asked the TV why he dressed this way, and was told, "I just like to, that's all."

The chief assured the merchant that such dressing was OK, so long as it wasn't a cover-up for illegal activity. On telling me the story, the chief didn't act as though the TV was the town "character"-it was the first time he had encountered the TV, and it didn't shake him up in the least.

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